Jeff Oliver
University of Aberdeen, Archaeology, Faculty Member
- Landscape Archaeology, Historical Archaeology, Historical Anthropology, Colonialism, Pacific Northwest Coast archaeology, Scotland, and 20 moreWestern Canada, Anthropology, Archaeology, Material Culture Studies, Indigenous Studies, Visual Anthropology, Postcolonial Studies, Environmental History, Historical Ecology, History of Cartography, Cultural Geography, British Imperial and Colonial History (1600 - ), Historical Geography, Postmedieval Archaeology, Scottish History, STS (Anthropology), Canadian History, Community Archaeology, Public Archaeology, and Public Engagementedit
- I am landscape archaeologist by training with an interest in the recent past. My research has focused mainly on the c... moreI am landscape archaeologist by training with an interest in the recent past. My research has focused mainly on the colonial period of western Canada and improvement-period Britain.edit
This collection of essays draws inspiration from the late James Deetz’s In Small Things Forgotten (1977). Deetz’s seminal work broke new ground by using structuralist theory to show how artefacts reflected the ‘worldviews’ or ideologies... more
This collection of essays draws inspiration from the late James Deetz’s In Small Things Forgotten (1977). Deetz’s seminal work broke new ground by using structuralist theory to show how artefacts reflected the ‘worldviews’ or ideologies of their makers and users, and claimed that the American colonial world had been structured according to a British intellectual blueprint, the so-called ‘Georgian Order’. His central premise, that the systematic study of mundane material objects such as tombstones, architecture, and furniture, can render palpable the intangible aspects of human cognition and belief systems, has become a fundamental tenet of modern historical archaeology.
Drawing on James Deetz’s insight that everyday objects from the recent past are ‘freighted with social significance’ and that material culture operates alongside language as a system of communication, this book unravels specific cultural moments in well-documented historical periods across the modern world. These studies range from the early 17th century to the late 20th century and employ theory from archaeology and anthropology to elucidate the complex links between human thought and action.
The authors, drawn from North America, Europe, and Australia, make a significant contribution to archaeological knowledge, moving beyond simple materialities to create human stories that transcend purely descriptive show-and-tell accounts of archaeological sites and allow taken-for-granted constructions of race, class and gender to be probed and challenged.
Drawing on James Deetz’s insight that everyday objects from the recent past are ‘freighted with social significance’ and that material culture operates alongside language as a system of communication, this book unravels specific cultural moments in well-documented historical periods across the modern world. These studies range from the early 17th century to the late 20th century and employ theory from archaeology and anthropology to elucidate the complex links between human thought and action.
The authors, drawn from North America, Europe, and Australia, make a significant contribution to archaeological knowledge, moving beyond simple materialities to create human stories that transcend purely descriptive show-and-tell accounts of archaeological sites and allow taken-for-granted constructions of race, class and gender to be probed and challenged.
Research Interests:
"The Fraser Valley in British Columbia has been viewed historically as a typical setting of Indigenous-white interaction. Jeff Oliver now reexamines the social history of this region from pre-contact to the violent upheavals of nineteenth... more
"The Fraser Valley in British Columbia has been viewed historically as a typical setting of Indigenous-white interaction. Jeff Oliver now reexamines the social history of this region from pre-contact to the violent upheavals of nineteenth and early twentieth century colonialism to argue that the dominant discourses of progress and colonialism often mask the real social and physical process of change that occurred here—change that can be more meaningfully tied to transformations in the land.
The Fraser Valley has long been a scene of natural resource appropriation—furs and fish, timber and agriculture—with settlement patterns and land claims centering on the use of these materials. Oliver demonstrates how social change and cultural understanding are tied to the way that people use and remake the landscape. Drawing on ethnographic texts, archaeological evidence, cartography, and historical writing, he has created a deep history of the valley that enables us to view how human entanglements with landscape were creative of a variety of contentious issues. By capturing the multiple dynamics that were operating in the past, Oliver shows us not only how landscape transformations were implicated in constructing different perceptions of place but also how such changes influenced peoples' understanding of history and identity.
This groundbreaking work examines engagement between people and the environment across a variety of themes, from aboriginal appropriation of nature to colonists' reworking of physical and conceptual geographies, demonstrating the consequences of these interactions as they permeated various social and cultural spheres. It offers a new lens for viewing a region as it provides fresh insight into such topics as landscape change, perceptions of place, and Indigenous-white relations. "
The Fraser Valley has long been a scene of natural resource appropriation—furs and fish, timber and agriculture—with settlement patterns and land claims centering on the use of these materials. Oliver demonstrates how social change and cultural understanding are tied to the way that people use and remake the landscape. Drawing on ethnographic texts, archaeological evidence, cartography, and historical writing, he has created a deep history of the valley that enables us to view how human entanglements with landscape were creative of a variety of contentious issues. By capturing the multiple dynamics that were operating in the past, Oliver shows us not only how landscape transformations were implicated in constructing different perceptions of place but also how such changes influenced peoples' understanding of history and identity.
This groundbreaking work examines engagement between people and the environment across a variety of themes, from aboriginal appropriation of nature to colonists' reworking of physical and conceptual geographies, demonstrating the consequences of these interactions as they permeated various social and cultural spheres. It offers a new lens for viewing a region as it provides fresh insight into such topics as landscape change, perceptions of place, and Indigenous-white relations. "
Research Interests: Ethnohistory, Rural Sociology, Cultural Geography, Historical Geography, Archaeology, and 18 moreAnthropology, Historical Anthropology, Indigenous Studies, Indigenous or Aboriginal Studies, Historical Archaeology, Canadian History, Landscape Archaeology, Postcolonial Studies, Social and Cultural Anthropology, Environmental History, Identity politics, Cultural Landscapes, Colonialism, 19th Century (History), Cultural Anthropology, Historical Ecology, Settler Colonial Studies, and Archaeology of Colonialism
"Studies in Contemporary and Historical Archaeology is a new series of edited and single-authored volumes intended to make available current work on the archaeology of the recent and contemporary past. The series brings together... more
"Studies in Contemporary and Historical Archaeology is a new series of edited and single-authored volumes intended to make available current work on the archaeology of the recent and contemporary past. The series brings together contributions from academic historical archaeologists, professional archaeologists and practitioners from cognate disciplines who are engaged with archaeological material and practices. The series will include work from traditions of historical and contemporary archaeology, and material culture studies, from Europe, North America, Australia and elsewhere around the world. It will promote innovative and creative approaches to later historical archaeology, showcasing this increasingly vibrant and global field through extended and theoretically engaged case studies.
This, the sixth volume in the series, assembles a series of innovative studies in the historical archaeology of graffiti. A rich variety of case studies that range from figures carved into the bark of aspen trees in upland Nevada made during the 1910s to stencilled rats on the streets of 21st-century Bristol, and from ships scratched into the limestone of Tewkesbury Cathedral to aircraft drawn on the walls of farm buildings by horselads in the Yorkshire Wolds during the early 20th century. Through these case studies, the editors clearly demonstrate the potential contribution of such sites to wider archaeological debates around the study of art and landscape: looking at the effects of artworks, rather than simply trying to interpret their meaning. This response to the ‘wildness’ of graffiti is contextualised in Victor Buchli’s afterword, which demonstrates the volume’s broader contribution to fields of material culture studies and the archaeology of the recent past.
Dan Hicks (University of Oxford) and Joshua Pollard (University of Bristol)
Series Editors""
This, the sixth volume in the series, assembles a series of innovative studies in the historical archaeology of graffiti. A rich variety of case studies that range from figures carved into the bark of aspen trees in upland Nevada made during the 1910s to stencilled rats on the streets of 21st-century Bristol, and from ships scratched into the limestone of Tewkesbury Cathedral to aircraft drawn on the walls of farm buildings by horselads in the Yorkshire Wolds during the early 20th century. Through these case studies, the editors clearly demonstrate the potential contribution of such sites to wider archaeological debates around the study of art and landscape: looking at the effects of artworks, rather than simply trying to interpret their meaning. This response to the ‘wildness’ of graffiti is contextualised in Victor Buchli’s afterword, which demonstrates the volume’s broader contribution to fields of material culture studies and the archaeology of the recent past.
Dan Hicks (University of Oxford) and Joshua Pollard (University of Bristol)
Series Editors""
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This chapter discusses how ways of knowing the past can alter significantly when the landscape is encountered through collaborative means. This is not intended as a straightforward evaluation of a further case study of community... more
This chapter discusses how ways of knowing the past can alter significantly when the landscape is encountered through collaborative means. This is not intended as a straightforward evaluation of a further case study of community archaeology. Instead, it is about the broader terms of temporality and landscape in which community archaeology and related forms of heritage research could engage. The empowerment that scholars engaged in public or community archaeology speak of can be usefully conceived of in terms of the ability to imagine the possible futures of heritage sites and their associated communities, and to help bring them into being. Empowerment may be complicated by different agendas, perspectives, and politics; yet, at the same time, it is these very processes that give the edge to heritage research by purposefully bringing in multiple voices and practices.
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Co-production of community heritage research is in the ascendant. Coproduction aims to break down barriers between 'experts' and the 'public' to co-create knowledge about the past. Few projects have sought to critically evaluate the... more
Co-production of community heritage research is in the ascendant. Coproduction aims to break down barriers between 'experts' and the 'public' to co-create knowledge about the past. Few projects have sought to critically evaluate the complexities of co-producing research, particularly long-term ones, composed of multiple activities, which draw on differently situated groups. This paper presents a reflective analysis by the universitybased participants of a long-standing community heritage project focusing on the ruins of a locally celebrated crofting community in Northeast Scotland. The use of archaeological and archival techniques, the creation of an exhibition, a kitchen garden, promenade drama, a heritage app, and publications, provide both opportunities and challenges for co-production. The meaning of co-production was shaped by the nature of research activities, resulting in significantly varied levels of participation; its embedding, therefore, requires managing expectations. Effective relationships for co-creating knowledge are an outgrowth of building trust, which take time, patience, and commitment.
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Research Interests: Archaeology, Historical Anthropology, Canadian History, Colonialism, Indigenous Knowledge, and 7 moreIndigenous Archaeology, History of Archaeology, Pacific Northwest Coast archaeology, British Columbia history, Northwest Coast Archaeology, British Columbia Archaeology, and Land Claims and Self Government
This review assesses some of the more recent contours of interdisciplinarity within the historical archaeology of the modern world. Three areas with unique integrative capabilities are assessed: i) archaeologies of landscape, space and... more
This review assesses some of the more recent contours of interdisciplinarity within the historical archaeology of the modern world. Three areas with unique integrative capabilities are assessed: i) archaeologies of landscape, space and place; ii) archaeologies of the contemporary past; and iii) archaeologies of science and historic materials. At its strongest, historical archaeology demonstrates an eclectic engagement with theories and methods developed elsewhere, setting the groundwork for interdisciplinary and even transdisciplinary futures. However, if one argues that interdisciplinarity requires a more reflexive sense of engagement with non-archaeological modes of enquiry, our discipline still has room for improvement.
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The concept of ethnicity is a prevailing explanatory device in studies of colonial architecture. This paper argues for decentring ethnicity in buildings research through treating buildings as ‘assemblages’ of both material and social... more
The concept of ethnicity is a prevailing explanatory device in studies of colonial architecture. This paper argues for decentring ethnicity in buildings research through treating buildings as ‘assemblages’ of both material and social ‘things’. Drawing on a case study from the late 19th-century settler landscape of Manitoba, Canada, we illustrate how settler architecture – conceived of as an ‘assemblage’ – can shed light on the events, processes and material consequences of homesteading in a new land. Through decentring ethnicity as a determining factor in building projects, the role of settler architecture as a material indicator of resistance or assimilation becomes more easily questioned. An archaeological interpretation of buildings as assemblages draws attention towards their materiality and the embodied experiences of building by highlighting the historical and geographical contingencies of the settlement landscape.
Research Interests: Cultural Geography, Historical Geography, Historical Anthropology, Historical Archaeology, Canadian History, and 14 moreLandscape Archaeology, Postcolonial Studies, Environmental History, Identity (Culture), Archaeological Method & Theory, Race and Ethnicity, Vernacular Architecture, Architectural History, Built Environment, Assemblage Theory - Manuel De Landa, Settler Colonial Studies, Settler colonialism, Cultural Indentity, and Manitoba History
In this paper we explore the intertwined issues of improvement and community relations within the context of the Colony site, a nineteenth-century informal settlement in Scotland best known through caricatures of the poor and stereotypes... more
In this paper we explore the intertwined issues of improvement and community relations within the context of the Colony site, a nineteenth-century informal settlement in Scotland best known through caricatures of the poor and stereotypes of rural living. Drawing on a multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary research framework, a collaborative initiative involving academics and community researchers has begun rediscovering and rethinking the history of the Colony. Our investigations have established a rich and unexpected tapestry of life that played out at multiple scales of analysis according to a variety of issues. The settlement’s rise and fall was shaped by wider improvement processes impacting parts of Europe and beyond, but it is also an example of how outside influences were adopted locally, resisted and adapted; material conditions that played directly into the way community relations were themselves constituted. The lessons learned have implications for the archaeology of improvement and the study of informal communities on a global scale.
Research Interests: Cultural History, Rural Sociology, Historical Archaeology, Self and Identity, Geoarchaeology, and 13 moreLandscape Archaeology, Scottish History, Oral history, Landscape History, Scottish Enlightenment, Microhistory, Social History, Agricultural History, Vegetation History and Archaeobotany, Scotland, Geoarchaeology and Paleoenvironmental Reconstructions, Crofting, and Archaeology of the Capitalism
This article arises from the Bennachie Landscapes Project, a collaboration between the Bailies of Bennachie and staff from the University of Aberdeen. It examines the interaction of archival and archaeological investigations by community... more
This article arises from the Bennachie Landscapes Project, a collaboration between the Bailies of Bennachie and staff from the University of Aberdeen. It examines the interaction of archival and archaeological investigations by community researchers concerned especially with the Bennachie 'Colony', a settlement of crofters on the hill of Bennachie (located near to Inverurie, Aberdeenshire) in the nineteenth century. An exercise partly in community archives, community archaeology, social history and historical archaeology, this project has sought to explore the everyday lives of the Bennachie 'colonists', in order to understand more closely their social and economic experiences and context. In doing so, archival and archaeological research methods have come together in a direct way which has raised new questions about life in the Colony. The project demonstrates a clear example of how textual and non-textual records may work together, in what might be described as an exercise in 'community archives-archaeology'.
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This paper reviews and rethinks the study of cultural landscapes in the context of western Canadian settlement history. The historiography of scholarship on the colonial period, across a broad array of disciplines, follows themes central... more
This paper reviews and rethinks the study of cultural landscapes in the context of western Canadian settlement history. The historiography of scholarship on the colonial period, across a broad array of disciplines, follows themes central to the study of continuity and change in settler societies, including assimilation, cultural revivalism and transnationalism. Influenced by historical conditions particular to the region, namely the creation of migrant block settlements and a legacy of multiculturalism, research has had a longstanding commitment to an ethnic history paradigm, which tends to orient our understanding of the cultural landscape in terms of what Brubaker and Cooper have called ‘identity history’. We argue that by focusing on relationships rather than boundaries, future research on the cultural dimension of settlement might move beyond ethnic history through investigating the possibilities of shared landscapes and communities of practice, built on the back of finding common material solutions to the problems of agrarian life.
Research Interests: Cultural Geography, Historical Geography, Historical Sociology, Historical Archaeology, Canadian History, and 15 moreLandscape Archaeology, Social and Cultural Anthropology, Identity (Culture), Race and Ethnicity, Cultural Landscapes, Colonialism, Architectural History, Comparative Cultural Studies, History of Iceland, Cultural Anthropology, Ethnicity, Settler Colonial Studies, Western Canadian History, Canadian and American Immigration History, and Manitoba History
Research Interests: Cultural Geography, Historical Geography, Anthropology, Historical Archaeology, Climate Change, and 7 moreLandscape Archaeology, History of Science, Enlightenment, Eighteenth-Century British History and Culture, Northern studies, Archaeology of the Contemporary Past, and Northern Studies: Circumpolar North
The northern world was created through contingent social and material relations that can be traced to the history of European and Western expansion. Scientific modes of representation, coupled with new systems of circulation and new... more
The northern world was created through contingent social and material relations that can be traced to the history of European and Western expansion. Scientific modes of representation, coupled with new systems of circulation and new appetites for mass consumption, served to create a stable, if flexible, image of the north in regions to the south. These sets of southern-centric views and their material consequences have had variable impacts on people living in “the North” and have resulted in a mixed legacy. As historical and contemporary archaeologies are well placed to examine the material relations that helped to create, as well as contest, modern incursions, the aim of this issue is to explore these themes and to inspire future contributions.
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Research Interests: Ethnohistory, Cultural Studies, Cultural Geography, Historical Anthropology, Indigenous Studies, and 12 moreHistorical Archaeology, Self and Identity, Landscape Archaeology, Postcolonial Studies, Social and Cultural Anthropology, Archaeological Method & Theory, Colonialism, Comparative Cultural Studies, Cultural Anthropology, Agency (Archaeological Theory), Pacific Northwest Coast archaeology, and Anthropology of Religion
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Research Interests: Anthropology, Indigenous or Aboriginal Studies, Historical Archaeology, Canadian History, Landscape Archaeology, and 11 morePostcolonial Studies, Environmental History, Cultural Landscapes, Colonialism, British Imperial and Colonial History (1600 - ), Settler Colonial Studies, First Nations of Canada, British Columbia history, Northwest Coast Archaeology, Archaeology of Colonialism, and British Columbia Archaeology
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Academic historiography generally emphasizes the diachronic processes of colonial landscape change in the New World; much less has been written about how such transformations were interpreted on the ground, at the time. This chapter... more
Academic historiography generally emphasizes the diachronic processes of colonial landscape change in the New World; much less has been written about how such transformations were interpreted on the ground, at the time. This chapter examines the history of 19th-century forest clearance in the Fraser Valley, British Columbia, from the perspective of colonists actively engaged in improving the land. It argues that people experienced change in very different ways, ways which do not always corroborate the dominant view of history as progressive. This is because notions of temporality were forged in synchronic moments – the product of human actions entangled with a changing landscape that conditioned and enabled different ways of seeing.
Research Interests: Rural Sociology, Cultural Geography, Historical Geography, Archaeology, Historical Archaeology, and 10 moreLandscape Archaeology, Environmental History, Cultural Landscapes, Philosophy of Time, British Imperial and Colonial History (1600 - ), Historical Ecology, Settler Colonial Studies, Pacific Northwest Coast archaeology, British Columbia history, and Archaeology of Colonialism
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This paper contributes to recent postcolonial debates about the cartography of European expansion and its implications for constructing North American landscapes. It does so by moving beyond a pure deconstructionist critique of mapping by... more
This paper contributes to recent postcolonial debates about the cartography of European expansion and its implications for constructing North American landscapes. It does so by moving beyond a pure deconstructionist critique of mapping by drawing on range of theoretical literature that encourages a view of cartography as being inextricably tied to the social relations of production and consumption. In particular, it emphasizes the point that maps have social lives not necessarily different in kind from other forms of material culture. Drawing on the cartographic creation of the northwest, the argument develops through examining the social and material dimensions of map
making and its afterlife. The paper suggests, therefore, that the ‘power of maps’ had varying and often contradictory outcomes.
making and its afterlife. The paper suggests, therefore, that the ‘power of maps’ had varying and often contradictory outcomes.
Research Interests: Cultural Studies, Cultural Geography, Historical Geography, Cartography, Historical Anthropology, and 15 moreHistorical Archaeology, Material Culture Studies, Landscape Archaeology, History of Science, Computer Networks, Cultural Landscapes, Colonialism, History of Cartography, Post-Colonialism, Maps and Society, British Imperial and Colonial History (1600 - ), Databases, Software, Archaeology of Colonialism, and Science and Technology Studies
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This project undertook as study of the archaeological potential of cave and fissure deposits and assessed current protection to such deposits as afforded through the planning process. The study areas included the carboniferous limestone... more
This project undertook as study of the archaeological potential of cave and fissure deposits and assessed current protection to such deposits as afforded through the planning process. The study areas included the carboniferous limestone of the Southern Pennines and the southern end of the Magnesian Limestone in Derbyshire, South Yorkshire and Nottinghamshire. Current practice was assessed for the assessment, evaluation and mitigation of the impacts of quarrying on cave and fissure deposits.
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Recent research into the environmental history of the Northwest Coast has revealed the significant cultural impact that pre-contact and contact period Indigenous communities had on the surrounding landscape. Ethnobotanical,... more
Recent research into the environmental history of the Northwest Coast has
revealed the significant cultural impact that pre-contact and contact period Indigenous communities had on the surrounding landscape. Ethnobotanical, paleoenvironmental, ethnographic, and archaeological approaches have documented the degrees to which people managed ecosystems or otherwise altered the physical landscape in places once considered “wilderness” by newcomers. Less attention has been paid to the ways in which landscapes were socially constructed and how living and working in such places gave meaning to social life at a variety of scales. Drawing from ethnographic, environmental and archaeological evidence, and taking into account how changes in the land would have become entangled within the routines of working the landscape, this article examines and interprets some of the social distinctions that people might have constructed through these places in the past. Two case studies from the central Coast Salish region are examined: first, the social practices and landscape features associated with cedar bark-stripping; and second, gardening traditions in sub-alpine areas of the Coast and Cascade Mountains. The results of this study suggest that we cannot separate economic (or cultural) patterns from the social qualities that are implicated within the practice of landscape modification, and that working and living through such places was socially consequential and bound up with concepts of history, memory, and identity.
revealed the significant cultural impact that pre-contact and contact period Indigenous communities had on the surrounding landscape. Ethnobotanical, paleoenvironmental, ethnographic, and archaeological approaches have documented the degrees to which people managed ecosystems or otherwise altered the physical landscape in places once considered “wilderness” by newcomers. Less attention has been paid to the ways in which landscapes were socially constructed and how living and working in such places gave meaning to social life at a variety of scales. Drawing from ethnographic, environmental and archaeological evidence, and taking into account how changes in the land would have become entangled within the routines of working the landscape, this article examines and interprets some of the social distinctions that people might have constructed through these places in the past. Two case studies from the central Coast Salish region are examined: first, the social practices and landscape features associated with cedar bark-stripping; and second, gardening traditions in sub-alpine areas of the Coast and Cascade Mountains. The results of this study suggest that we cannot separate economic (or cultural) patterns from the social qualities that are implicated within the practice of landscape modification, and that working and living through such places was socially consequential and bound up with concepts of history, memory, and identity.
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